Took a muddy ride...

I need a good ride after sitting too long at the mine. It 's good for the blood to take a ride as often as possible. Seems to get some sort of toxin out of the my system that the body creates when it has been enclosed in a small room, doing nothing for too long. All of those thoughts starting with "if" are pedalled out of my brain and at the end of it all, when I am finally relaxing, my life feels simplier.

So I set out, and not more than a minute after leaving it started to rain.

No problem , I thought, and headed on my way. My destination was a park in La Reina located on the edge of the mountain range. Even the edge is steep, and it is a ride that makes me want to give in. There is a hill that stands around 3,500 meters which I am aiming for, but after two attempts I have yet to make it up all the way.

The path takes me through several different neighborhoods, from tree filled, architecturally inspired part of town to muddy slums with too many metal fences. The road and side walk are full of holes, only a few curbs are anything decent to ride over. By the time I get to the base of the mountains from my apartment I have already fought through several kilometers of rough riding.

The uphill starts, and doesn't let up until you give up. It starts out on cement and goes straight up. Too steep, I always think as I stare up the road ahead of me. I thought that I would be able to handle it a little better since my last attempt. I had been on the bike more often and felt more confident about my physical condition.

Instead I found it more difficult. I was standing up while pedaling, counting my progress foot by foot. I had to stop several times in the cool drizzle that enclosed Santiago and isolated it from any sort of sun or blue sky. It also had a nasty way of holding in the smog, but that was only during the rain. After rainfall in Santiago you can actually see the mountains, in detail, and glazed with a fresh layer of Andean snow.

I continued my ascent, making progress slowly, but surely. After some time, I got to the block before the long, very steep patch of road before the entrance to the park. It was still the beginning of the ascent, but a patch of flat earth awaiting me. I stopped and took a short breather. While I was stopped, another biker, a mailman, pulled up to the intersection with his overloaded rig. It was still a drizzle, and the wet, steep street glistened, making it look even meaner. He took a look at the climb, then at me.

"Vas a subrir?" He asked me (Are you going up?)
"claro" I answered.
"puedes llevar un sobre alli? He asked (could you take an enevelope up there?)
"No problema"

I stuffed the enevelop, destined for the park office, coming from the bank, into my pocket. Pedal by pedal, I forced my way up the hill. I got to the top and delivered the letter to some confused looking workers. After all, it wasn't everyday that there was a gringo delivering bank notes.

This park consists of an event center, a luge-type slide, an equestrian club, picnic space, and several hiking trails. I started up the trails, but found the riding overwhelming. Wheezing for air, feeling a little sick from all the pedaling, I pushed my bike for awhile and then started pedaling again. It was around then that I realized that the entire time I had been using the middle gears, not the granny ones for climbing. The anguish of the push up hill made a little more sense, and I sighed seeing how much of a difference the lower gears made.

I pushed on ahead, and arrived at a wide trail, It had been cleared recently and was more of a road than a trail. I headed up and after awhile again had to get off my bike and push it. Finally I was about out of gas. The nice thing about this ride is that you can ride all you want, and without a problem find the point where you just can't ride any higher. I found some shelter under a tree and gazed out over the clouded view of Santiago. I could barely see my neighborhood, which was relatively close in the scale of things. The center of town, much less the other side of the valley ,were completly hidden in the smog and rain.

The drizzle picked up to rain, and I deceided to head back down. Coming up, the road had been dirt, going down it was pure clay. It stuck to my tires, surrounding the chain, the brakes, the derailer. I had to stop every few minutes in the ever increasing rain and clear out the clay. At one point I couldn't even turn the back wheel. It was a matter of pushing the clay clogged bicycle, but at the same town keeping it from rolling down the hill to fast.

Finally, I made it off the mud road, cleared away some of the excess mudd and headed back to the paved road. The downhill, normaly the highlight of the ride, was difficult, mud flying in my face, rain coming down, I was trying to keep my speed low but because of the grade it was tempting to just let go of the brakes and let gravity pay the bill.

In the end, I made the long ride back to the shelter of my apartment. I was completely soaked, covered in mud, had cold hands, and worn out.

In other words, one great ride.